Throwing Bricks into Voids
by Zaedah
Summary: Remains and ruins buy the semi-miraculous.
1. Olivia

_Because this hiatus has dragged on quite long enough, thank you... Zaedah presents a future fic._

* * *

**Throwing Bricks into Voids**

Nothing strives for the appearance of danger as blatantly as a dark alley. In works of literature, in police logs and in practice on this rainy night, roofless corridors of brick and filth are where the demons hide in flesh and revel in the rot of disturbing deeds. Between two stone buildings, centuries old and worn into disrepair, the narrow gulf that divides them is encased in red brick during daylight hours. But where the moon cannot reach, the unyielding construction leaks with black.

They say midnight is the only garment for departing souls.

Eight bodies left their spirits here, separated from the burden of color with an abrupt shift in time and place. The dead become litter, mingling with the meaningless bits that life discards. There is a damp newspaper tumbling gracelessly from the far end, lifted by the wet winds of April but never traveling far. An object being pushed along by outside whims and never reaching its preferred destination through independent locomotion is to be pitied. Ultimately, such things are trampled are forgotten, replaced tomorrow by fresh ink and lies.

Dunham knows the feeling.

The soggy whip of loose hair into scanning eyes steals not her focus. Each section of the walls is catalogued for traces of another world, knuckles dragging over the surface to sample what should be solid and assuring. It is neither. Skin is absorbed into the face of the back wall, cells transferred from fingertips to the rough texture that disguises its lack of stability by promoting the flexible facade as a hallucination. Bricks of formed gelatin support thirty newly abandoned floors on nothing but promising illusion. Everything moves, the witness's statement reads. Everything bends as though molecules have commenced a war of avoidance with each other.

She's not afraid of the alley. She's afraid of the answer.

The events are occurring more frequently as lifeless time hobbles on. Olivia's cases have taken an exclusive lean toward these instances of dimensional scratchings. Something is trying to come through and her front line consists of only herself now. Yet here she stands, sniffing for the odor of present reality being shoved aside. There is a particular scent to the friction, worlds groaning to a burn in the manner of angry tectonic plates. Dunham is caught between the shifting flux and like this alley, it surrounds her with the taint of wrongs that are proving unfixable.

Most days, one world is too much.

Standing in the weighted dark of a night journeying without courtesy, Olivia is a sentinel guarding this space as though her attendance is sufficient cause for the void to open. She's seen it split once, reclaiming what it owns and leaving her untouched, bereft and mourning for what may yet exist. Elsewhere. Until she knows, Dunham will remain defiant and waiting in the residue where the haze of another universe has knocked and entered. Everything moves and she wills it to move for her. The law of averages says it must eventually open in the same place twice, exercising the familiar hot zone theory. While she always misses the initial event, her flight is swift in the conviction that a relapse is inevitable. It must want more than it takes.

It took all that she wants.

Her second sight picks apart the scattered debris, seeking a familiar hue among the pieces of humanity's hurry. But it's like reaching out to grasp perfume, fingers slipping through mist. If she squints hard enough, common items display their kiss of faint glimmer and while she can touch these things, they cannot lead her to the next destination. One step behind and years too late to stop the gears from cranking out a relentless conclusion. But the increased frequency of shredded space is false hope lain upon desperate hands.

He's trying to come back.

Stained pants and scuffed shoes become victims of new rain, which washes away the dirt everywhere but here. Still Dunham allows a moment of fancy when she lifts a hand where the hole must have been and imagines him standing on the other side. Searching for home. Reaching for her. The sight and the smell melt into taste; him demanding and playful and alive on her lips. Memories do no justice but that minute of resurgent flavor, always fresh at these sites, is worth the hassle and fury to arrive. One day she won't be too late. She will pull him from that place.

Or join him there.

* * *

_Companion piece is in the works. Stay tuned..._


	2. Peter

_I do hope this new series has piqued your interest, for there are a few more chapters to go... _

* * *

**Throwing Bricks into Voids**

**(the other side)**

The reverb rumbles among the swaying crops, rending stalks from their roots and pelting the moist ground with dislodged ears of early corn. It is an agonizing vibration, like standing inside a bass drum that's been struck by a battering ram. But the aftershocks are worse. The resonance is a perpetual thumping that passing hours lessen but never conquer. Respectful of the damaging sound waves, the owner no longer leaves scarecrows to their fate in this field. The last straw man had been scattered to the winds and only its pole remained, a jagged, bitten top testifying to the short fuse of the void. A warning.

One must not tally here.

In other worlds such a magnificent, destructive force would become a tourist attraction, tempting the adventurous to play chicken with the unpredictable tear, which resembles sand art in a demon's palate. In a different place there would be a stalwart group investigating its nature and cause. And working to comprehend its appetite. But not in this dimension. Here it is a reasonable shadow on the wall, a constantly visible scratch acknowledged and left to devices unhindered. A black sheep in the family still admired for talents misunderstood and nonetheless tolerated.

Opinions aren't made by choice.

Since the violent hole may spit forth recovered items at any time, one can only avoid being caught in the twister by reading the signs. Lightning precedes its awakening, a slow build carved in beauty with white bolts like firecrackers as though the event is something to be celebrated. When the thunderous yawn begins, the purple canvas of the sky no longer enchants. There is a quickening of natural flight impulses once the vibrations dig tense fingers into the dirt and shake the foundation like the hand of a hungry God ripping a slice out of His world.

Twelve bites under a Bishop's gaze.

Twenty four years ago, the void first appeared and blame was immediately assigned to deviants within the hidden communities, driving them further underground. Some say the world shakes now to rid itself of the unclean, faceless scourge. A witch hunt had been deemed reasonable but though many were punished, the rip in the atmosphere would not mend. No god was appeased and no one attempted to inspect its calling. A black streak mars an otherwise spotless view that is only noticed when one refuses to turn away. The man waiting for its next eruption will not turn away. He just can't explain why.

Sometimes he'd swear he controls it.

Because it never moves, Peter Bishop knows exactly where the void will open and is occasionally certain he is linked to its origin. And to others. Their faces are blurring now as too many days stretch behind him. It is only as the portal is birthed anew that they are resurrected, voices coming to him on the undercurrent of thunder. Hers is the strongest and Peter thinks she must be near, perhaps just beyond the wicked swirl of color and flash. But he can no longer remember why she would be looking for him when every nerve ending tells him that he is where he should be. Parts of him were always here, waiting for final assembly.

She might have been strong.

Fair-haired and tall, Peter recalls in the lapses that resemble hangovers. They've had those too and he never drinks now without toasting her. Whatever her name is. It fells like something he should know. In the crucial seconds when the opening is at its zenith and his hand rises to touch the ghost of someone familiar, Peter can taste her. And the space fills with the scent of burning soil, bitter and alluring, but the warm fragrance of forgotten skin is as real as the trembling of a world he can see but never call home.

When the aftershocks fade, so does she.

There is an urgency to return to the wrong dimension in those moments, his hand convinced it has reached closer to perfection. Stepping away from the crackling majesty that calms slowly, he knows the sensation will be lost until the void lives again. And then he lives again. This new existence is forged, a habit from a past life that necessity requires him to revive. But there is, in the recesses of a captured mind, recollection of purpose, of usefulness he's yet to achieve here. For all that the place feels right, Peter's peace is usurped by a craving. He cannot name it until he can name her.

So he brings the void to life again.


	3. Astrid

**Throwing Bricks into Voids**

**(the third view)**

Buildings live two distinct lives. Sunlight brings an escapist hustle to the bodies trapped within while moonlight diminishes the inside traffic, decreasing the population and slowing the collective heartbeats to a comatose crawl. Covert ops mingle with the general procession of life beneath dispassionate stars as the conductors remain tucked behind brick and facelessness, overseeing the orchestra and manipulating the symphony. It is said that the most mundane task force in the bureau is the Computer Crimes division. The agents assigned to this group strive for a keyboard existence, alternately multiplying and thinning under dimmed florescent lights and nurtured in monitor glow.

The keyboard is sanitized daily.

Many believe that tracking a criminal by methods that avoid actual contact appeals solely to those deficient in bravery, who prefer banging on keys to pounding on doors. Binary codes and data streams are, in the physical sense, harmless to the unseen stalker of wrong. Still, invisibility is only a small portion of the benefits. Breaking encryption is likened to firing a bullet, the impact immediate and satisfying. Using benign technology to invade and destroy the hard work of bad men feels like crafty karma. Many of the white hats are women, some beautiful and often popular, shunning every cyber-fighter stereotype. But they are no less suspicious of outsiders.

Like the one going berserk by degrees.

Too many hours caged in a stark room surrounded by the beep and flash of running programs cannot be eased by kicking rebel vending machines. So as Astrid Farnsworth assaults the plexiglass and metal harboring her criminal Snickers, caffeinated eyes lift above screen rims to judge her aim. She'd been born into this fraternity, nursed on gigabytes and trained by motherboards. But the membership was revoked with her slow drift into the real world, the sunlit version proceeding outside the plate glass windows and bottomless coffee carafes. She cannot adequately explain how unreal that world had become. It is both missed and the sum of unrelenting fears.

Friends are a crooked hand dealt and lost.

Of the many things supernatural revelation has attempted to pull into its hungry emptiness, she clings hardest to the name. Astrid's grandmother, a ferocious woman drenched in religious beliefs, used to say that words have power, so one must never speak what one does not wish to be. Tempting fate, her father would agree in that patient way of grown children still waiting for the previous generation to move aside. With the soundtrack of a panting server in her ear, Astrid can feel the name tickling her tongue and she'll speak it in a fervent wish for it to be. In other company, the exhalation of the name is not welcome, though it hovers like funeral incense above mourning heads.

Olivia both denies the name and lives for it.

Thick walls cannot hinder the flow of gossip, a cruel thing of sour intent that brings only a nugget of truth in the barrel of supposition. They say Agent Dunham is chasing the sort of shadows that frequently lead to unemployment. It is blamed on proximity to a lunatic and the exodus of a shady man. That Olivia is still armed and equipped is laid on the head of a respected man quickly shedding esteem. Accusations of favoritism and pandering are arrows just beginning to dent Broyles' armor. They answer to no one. Yet. But the pursuit of random vortexes in the sky wins no admirers. And lost a staunch colleague.

Even a believer can only sacrifice so much.

True love exists, in a brutal way that makes a witness grateful for the lack of it. Evil exists, in an all-encompassing manner that manages to appear both supreme and magnanimous. Monsters exist, but none so fearsome as a familiar form handing out Armageddon with a smile that ultimately drove Astrid from the lab, the field, the camaraderie. The elder broke under the weight of love, evil and the monsters that sometimes look like a cut in reality's fickle fabric. And the lover fractured with equal completeness. Only Olivia's agony has been reborn as a singular obsession, the labor pangs a fresh heartbreak each day.

There's nothing at the end of rainbows.

Mostly because there are no rainbows, only the illusion of beauty that earns a hundred songs and evokes a thousand tears for merely being a trick of moist light. Finding such cheer false, Astrid looks no longer to the forgery above. Sees not the stars, the moon or the colors of a sky bruised by the finger of God. There are no shapes in clouds. There is no sun. And the void they cannot calculate will continue to open in places they are not, returning nothing that it has taken. Yet Astrid still speaks his name because there is power in words and the last remaining hope is that he's never too far that it can't be heard.


	4. Olivia 2

**Throwing Bricks into Voids**

**(the fourth visit)**

It is intended to avoid sensory overload, to achieve soothing tones so similar as to become unremarkable. Clinical in its sameness, allowing nothing to be specifically noticed, which cultivates a sensation of being a child irrevocably lost in a sterile world. There is only regression here, for the lack of another option and the abundance of a chemical substitute for thought. It is as though the reemergence of individualism will be a shock from which the inhabitants are incapable of recovering. They are lost and induced to remain so in the name of society's benefit.

The starkness is counterproductive.

Those sinking into the white can grasp neither the purpose not the escape and the fight is stirred within, searing the flesh pounded beneath the hammer of manufactured madness. The bland, singularity shade blinds an eye starved for variety. Dunham wishes something would trigger the reddish hue of otherworldly possession for the sake of color withdrawal. It has become a fixation, seeking things that carry his glow as one looks for quarters on the pavement. He is her wealth, stored in a fortified safe and each clue is another digit to the combination.

The key is housed in lunacy.

He wouldn't want Walter here. This and a thousand other failings fuel Olivia's perennially blossoming self-hatred. He would be disappointed but would manage to exhale the most calming words into her willing ear. A piper spinning sarcasm into intimate suggestion. Hadn't he talked himself into her bed much the same way? Gorgeous words and heaven's hands and devilish eyes that even a paranormal void cannot erase. So good at the con but better at truth than he realized.

Even without her gift, he glimmered.

Walter stares like she's a mirror to something he can only see by a refusal to blink. It's disconcerting but she knows what he's looking for. Once a window had been built by younger, surer hands, stretching the membrane of the universe to reveal all he'd lost. She wants to tell him that his son cannot be seen within her. There's too much emptiness to harbor anything useful. And still he dissects her, wordless and ultimately dissatisfied. Never speaks, this frazzled man who held a miracle in hand and watched his own creation rip away what he'd stolen.

Never speaks more than a name.

It should not produce a cringe to hear the benediction of two syllables. Dunham understands her tears but not the sense of wrong when others whisper what should be hers. The few lips to construct the simple sequence of letters in her presence regret the error once her grief manifests as spitting anger. A drifter they say, who'd siphoned luxury from the government and vanished to likely defraud another country's rulers. They say the name to gauge reaction. Even her once faithful friend speaks it against Olivia's fervent wish. In case he can hear, Astrid muses while pointedly kicking through the ruins of such hope. How can a whisper reach where her screams cannot? She will not say his name because he will not answer back.

The elder still seeks absolution.

As he chants the name, Dunham wonders to which version he calls; the boy he commended to the soil or the man with no remains to bury? The path of tears is disrupted by the wrinkled skin, moisture catching in crevices behind shaking hands. She does not wipe away what is earned, has no kindness to impart. Even her presence is meant to harm, knowing it brings him pain. The first time Walter had met Agent Dunham, she hadn't been alone and he expects the same now. And is crushed anew. He crafted the circumstance a quarter century ago and cannot resolve it. Forgiveness is impractical.

There is a twisted solace in shared despair.

Freshly medicated, the docile sheep is lead away and Olivia is swarmed by the brightness of white. Alone. There had been another once, one for whom she'd fought and dreamt. She can speak his name but finds no reason, can barely remember him or his significance. None matter save the one behind the dimensional barrier. Nothing matters save reaching the opening just once before it closes. And perhaps no one save a distant apparition can help her find what is missing. Help her declare the name again and be answered.

And she knows what must be done.


	5. Peter 2

**Throwing Bricks into Voids**

**(the fifth answer)**

Monochrome does not exist here. This is a society which believes that the neutral bloom of grays and beige is the design scheme of devils and the harboring of dull shades is an invitation to evil. Life is swift here and the palate should match the pace. Dwellings bear the war paint of purposeful color, businesses bathe in the countenance of tasteful rainbows and the apparel of the populace reflects the general census that color shall be the shield. Gleaming pronouncements made in bright and strident tones become as communal prayers. A plea for protection.

Against what, none are certain.

There is, in the cool of evening, a collective mistrust of night stars and common shadows that rise like smoke from chimneys. For all the advances of a people who shun complacency, no device can coax a sense of safety from the fearful things that filter down into this world from the great, anonymous above. Something menacing is born of fear and it feeds from the same. They know not the form of their dread but imagination serves to worsen the prospects. In the tradition of every unproven rumor, the next generation adds layers to the legend.

Once upon a time…

There had been no void. The darkened sky used to glitter with submissive stars that hummed a celestial chorus between the silences. In those days the uniformity of the night's profile was a symbol of rightness, as though an approval from God. When the canvas was torn, nowhere on the planet was beyond the reach of the sight, forever altering the global skyline with a hushed birth. Considered the child of a storm, the turbulent window is said to have been expelled from the womb of the heavens by a cunning god. Divinity appeared as a man, emerging from the rip to claim something precious. No one knows the nature of the object but the myth labels it of more value than a thousand lives.

And intrinsically tied to the void.

Patrick Bishoff catches a different flavor of the story every time he enters town. As the phenomenon's disgruntled birthplace, the village square is dedicated to propagating the mystery for the sake of tourism's promising bounty. Every inn and diner boasts the most spectacular view of the hated defacement. Patrick no longer displays confusion or interest in the vivid tales of supernatural encroachment, holds no curiosity for its arrival or function. And though the pull of it still wakes him from restless sleep, he will not rise to stare down the pulsing glow to seek answers. Not anymore. For months the idea of controlling it had consumed him but Serrah begged him to let it go.

And she warms his bed so sweetly.

Patrick had been summoned from the bottom of a vast character inventory, proving an easy fit of imitation skin and she was not stopped from falling for the fraud. He mingles with her family and takes her desperately and lies at every moment. It's too familiar but he is resolved to be satisfied. She is pretty and irrelevant, content with the portion he allots her. Still, hers is a welcoming body, forgiving of his inattention and capable of dragging a smile from his melancholy. When he disappears at strange hours, Serrah suspects criminal activity or another lover, never confronting him on either and wrong on both counts. He can assure her that there is no other woman.

There are, in fact, two.

One owns the soft, lyrical voice of a bird, calling his true name with more hope than is suitable. But the dulcet tone does not match the strong, haunted face in his mind and this is one of many questions he chokes down with adequate alcohol. To drink is to forget, as essentially futile premise since one cannot forget what is not remembered. But the mist of his memory stirs in dreams, showing him things that drift out of knowledge in the light of day. Except when he stands too near the void. In the passive radiance of the monster's inactivity, he can dismiss the feeling that something important has been misplaced. But when the tear wakes, splitting wide like a yawning volcano, everything is made briefly and terribly clear, only to be lost just as swiftly when the rumbling calms. And he is safe inside Patrick's shell again.

Until Serrah's employer calls him Peter.

Arriving with an entourage of security, the man introduces himself as William Bell and Patrick has no reason to know this name. But Peter does. Somehow. The stranger presents photographs, two generations of Bishop males standing under a sky unhindered by unwieldy vandalism, Bell hovering just inside the shot. That no thought had yet been given to his own family disturbs him more than the increasingly inaccessible memory. Having avoided asking questions for nearly a year, Peter falls into inquisition and learns the distressing fate of a father driven to suicide and a mother killed by a dead heart. Still, Bell glows in retelling the miracle of a missing son's return home. Home. This is not his life, he confesses to Bell, though he's not sure which one he means. The old man simply nods. It's infuriating and comforting and nothing close to an answer.

He is no longer satisfied.


	6. Astrid 2

_Please forgive the following moment of despair..._

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**Throwing Bricks into Voids**

**(the sixth drink)**

For a celebration there is a stunning amount of critical whispering. The room is large, featuring dramatic architecture which cannot settle on one particular period. An overdone theme of Louis XV, asymmetrical and heavily ornate, strives for peace with the gothic gargoyles perching on a rail near the popcorn ceiling. Like the world outside the brick masonry, the interior cannot decide what it wants to be. Nothing is aided by the dour color choice. There is enough black to rival an eclipse; draping across furniture and coating bodies and moods in a blatant display of funeral décor.

A joyous occasion reveling in depression.

It is rather like being trapped in an oversized coffin where they serve champagne. Hell is not brimfire and pitchforks, it is a black-tie event where the dresses are short enough to suggest without earning unsavory labels, where the men are free to call upon excesses of wine as long as the gifts are decent. In this place, there is little movement and less noise, the courteous hush of impolite people wishing not to be caught speaking ill of the departed.

Except no one has died.

What astounds Astrid, despite having the last two hours to acclimate to the surroundings, is that a wedding has taken place in this room. The guests are not mourners, they are witnesses of matrimony. And she, in her mandatory black dress and inadvisable heels, cannot wrap a hand around the muted pleasure being faked on all sides. The bride and groom are engulfed in a swarm of well-wishers, working toward the gift tables with a hurry that indicated that this is the sole purpose for not disappearing through the emergency exit.

Escape is a reasonable destination.

Lending nothing to the affair, the federal agent uses the scope of her training to sneak out of the location. No one notices, less from skill than a lack of concern for the girl nobody recognizes. Astrid knows the couple well enough to assume her presence brings little comfort to the aching feet wishing elopement had been more strongly considered. Stepping gingerly into the overcast afternoon, the oncoming storm and its false brightness is a welcome alternative to forced shadows. The false cheer is hard to maintain but the brewing darkness does not require it. She can wear any face when no one is near to witness.

She talks in whens, not ifs.

When Peter is found they will bury their fears in the bitter soil and speak only hope and life. When Peter comes home the void will be laid to rest and the souls obliterated by loss will be revived. If takes up too much room in a mind already filled with grief and thus is evicted daily. When is a blanket across her shivering shoulders, warm and tangible as his embrace. It was never romance, but it was something and the nothing of now is daily suicide. What she remembers most is the companionship, of never feeling alone or misunderstood or forgotten in his presence. A sense of a brother gained.

A kinship with his bruised, nomadic heart.

Radio news reports classify the disturbance in the city as a gas main explosion, the lights and rippled described by witnesses dismissed by the late hour and false perceptions. But Astrid knows. The void has breached their dimension once again after weeks of inactivity. Walter had explained his device as a mirror Alice might step through to enter Wonderland, but time and tragedy have altered the looking glass into a living window with a volcano's appetite. She wonders if Olivia is close this time or miles away on the new path rumor cites her as traveling these days.

Hunting William Bell.

Astrid puts black asphalt between herself and the scene of a colossal time waster, tipsy on alcohol and lamenting all the happier, better decorated weddings she'll never witness. Eyes fill with the moisture she's fought thus far with the unfailing belief in the prospect of hope, her vision blurring while the sky opens in mockery. Lightning blinds, thunder rumbling along with her numb tune, mumbled but no less heartfelt. A missed dose of anxiety medication has left her shaking and reality churns her spirit to a boil. When the sky opens in a kaleidoscope of dazzle and spit, she watches, fascinated in the violent color and wishing the beautiful beast would take her. It does.

His name, the final song on cold lips.


	7. Olivia 3

**Throwing Bricks into Voids**

**(the seventh plea)**

What Satan's most stalwart worshipers fail to realize is that the devil's lair is not housed within an unreachable, sulfur-choked realm. It is in a boardroom. The building itself is starkly tasteful, a modern glimpse of how steel and glass can be coaxed into quick angles and soft curves, strength woven into clean beauty. Every surface shines. Every staffer smiles. Employees are drafted with the promise of worthy roles in the betterment of man, both to make history and secure the future. Such lofty goals are reachable within these sterile, efficient walls. There is vital work done here, abolishing the world's inconveniences through calculated science with a splashy display of humanity.

Greatness is an advance away.

If one looks close enough, minor imperfections become a mirror into the facility's deficient soul. The glass's skin is leprous with spots, the trim needs retouching and the smiles aren't as genuine as the formation of lips suggests. Because inventors and scientists have more than genius in common; they have ego, a resilient pride that keeps the breed alive. Crafting miracles is not the hardest part of the job. They must hand over improbabilities made reality to a corporation whose logo will appear on literature that will make no mention of the individuals responsible. Each brain child is adopted by cold profiteers and the bonuses speak louder than the thank you of an ungrateful society for the improvements they've spilled blood to birth.

Gods as slaves. Slaves as gods.

The air in this place has lived many times, reincarnated into the deception of freshness like a corpse splashed with perfume. Olivia breathes in the charade, growing thicker the higher the elevator climbs. The executive suites are not filled with the brightest minds but the best liars, men who swear by the faultlessness of their goods and women who may not have slept their way into the power club but cannot shake off the mantle of such assumptions. Every idea is recycled, stale bread restructured to appear as a sumptuous meal. Tasting like bitter ash and yet desirable, so deeply needed by a populace eager for newness no matter how suspect the packaging.

The welcome is reconstituted.

Protocol sets standards for greeting those of the civilian sector whose assistance has proven useful in the past. In that raw past, Dunham had been capable of entering this building, this office, and playing the assigned role of modest public servant, approaching the administrators of Massive Dynamic with sufficient decorum to obtain partial answers while avoiding fraternization. Job offers had come her way in the beginning, when she shined, when she smiled. Before Olivia's suspicions had a proven basis. Still, while Eve had a natural fear of the serpent, the promises were as sweet as the fruit. The apple is knowledge. And knowledge opens windows. The first woman bit, chewed and swallowed the succulent lie for the sake of knowing.

Olivia bites down harder.

But a fruit grown from rotten seeds will host only decay within its core. The skin is sweet, the fleshly covering enticing while the center has piercing teeth of its own, snapping to bite whosoever might come close and inspect the flaws. Dunham is not surprised that the serpent wears red, shades of a perfect apple with fangs fairly glinting from the devious core. Red as the devil's cloak. A false smile adorns both women, neither fooled and the discourse begins with the most tender of subjects. The snake wastes no time this day, pleasantries unnecessary for two combatants no longer fastened to the plank of pretense. The demand is issued by a woman with no power and Nina Sharp grants a benevolent nod, which serves as a dismissal Dunham will not heed.

She spits the threat like a toxic seed.

It is a tiny thing, the vow to destroy but the ploy of nonexistent evidence had worked before. She'd once used it on another once, in the days when coercion alone compelled him to stay. In another dimension, she'd met a stranger who'd shared the secrets with her. He would have more secrets now and Olivia will collect them by appeal or by force. Bell is the key to an unsanctioned extraction and Nina is the strong that will lead Olivia through realities to reach him. But the string is of a knotty, abrasive nature and Olivia's hands grip painfully on what little length she can acquire. The void, Nina tells her, is the mutated child of Walter Bishop's window and its appearance is impossible to predict.

Ask Agent Farnsworth.

As the dawning frost settles into Dunham's veins, the void-brewed storm that claimed her friend is unsparingly detailed. Astrid had accomplished by chance the one thing that Olivia could not manage by persistence. She'd been in the right place when the window yawned, looking into the belly of the hungry chasm as it tossed the vehicle. Beautifully dressed and thoroughly mangled. There was nothing to be done for her. And there is nothing to be done for Peter. Nina coats her skin in contrition, citing a lifelong fondness of Dr Bishop's gifted son. And then the snake dances. Perhaps a deal can be brokered, the rebuilding of communication with Bell in exchange for undisclosed services in the future. No questions asked.

And Dunham shakes hands with Satan.


	8. Peter 3

**Throwing Bricks into Voids**

**(the eighth mystery)**

The stars were emperors of the sky, more numerous in a single atmosphere than a galaxy of orbiting bodies, more radiant in their collective than any one of the heavier celestial masses. They fell upon the praise of man, they glittered to the prayers of children. They ruled as only distant and magical things can, without reaching down to their subjects. Existing and burning out in their own cycle, the stars gathered in patterns, shone in unison and remained safely aloft in defiance of man's feeble interference. Humans have long dreamt of invading that remote space and once there, found only more mysteries.

The disappearance is the greatest of these.

Despite a fascination with destruction, man could neither affect nor alter the nature and path of constellations. Clouds may shroud them and neon lights may dim them, but man's own hand could not tamper with eternity. They've hovered in their blanket of black for all time and a sky lacking them was unfathomable. To what would dreamers make their petitions? To where might the eye look for inspiration? There is comfort in the knowledge that what lies above has born witness to ancestors and history. Thus it took something more powerful than the human species to remove those faithful stars from their gifted permanence. But vanish they did and the theories are as vast as their former numbers.

Abandonment is the most persistent conjecture.

The void watchers say that the erasure of stars came on the heels of the Great Storm, God's fireflies swallowed by hungry pestilence. Others cite a more complex, mythical belief; the jealous stars wished not to share their atmosphere with a noisy intruder and ventured deeper into space to find a home far from the colossal, crackling usurper. The general consensus inhabits the breath between the two ideas. Perhaps they defended their territory and lost. These are questions rarely asked aloud. Better to keep unanswerable musings to themselves, where opinions can earn no scorn. It is a society of sameness where radical notions are sacrilege.

He will be a heretic tonight.

In a soaked field in the dark hours, Patrick Bishoff sheds the lie and lets Peter Bishop emerge, lets the man inside answer the beast spiraling above. It called him here, insistent to the point of painful, a pressured echo in his head that only proximity would alleviate. What had been sleeping upon his arrival had begun a slow stir, sending the temperature plummeting as the fissure contorted in a dangerous greeting. Against the starless sky the chasm is a purple stain brightened by sporadic lightning. It is a terrifying beauty, one Peter doubts he can reason with. Even now, standing before the vacuum feeling its fingers tug him closer, it still calls, demands he witness what it's doing. As though he's not close enough. While the corn stalks wave in warning, he struggles to stand his ground.

A familiar whisper exhales his name.

Her blond-framed face surges into his brain, lost in recent weeks and nearly forgotten. A composed woman of sturdy spirit whose smile is a rare pearl. And her name is… gone. It is not she who calls, not with any discernible voice. But every molecule within him calls back, not to the summoning voice but to that face. Neither is here. He is alone and never more so. The tear widens, pulling life from somewhere else and when he tries to push toward the beast, it roars with a force that slams him backwards. The moist soil cushions his landing. Wild winds toss the questions aside while deep, phantom pain surfaces in prickling waves. Rising to his knees, Peter casts confused agony to the storm as rain courses down his cheeks to catch on gasping lips. The sound of a thousand colliding trains batters his ears.

Abrupt is the silence.

With surgical precision, the rip is sewn up and put to rest like a weary child settled. The winds calm, the lightning abates and the man left kneeling in the dirt feels the pain drain from his body. Leaving a hole that Serrah and her acceptance cannot fill. The woman wearing his shirt waits in the doorway, long legs bare and gleaming in lamplight. What lends his lover illumination is purely external while the nameless other shines from some deep reservoir at her core. Serrah's gentle hands reach out in an invitation that he doesn't want, brushes away the dirt that he won't explain, begs for a heart that he can't give. Even as he mimics the function of satisfying her, his thoughts are elsewhere. Studying the void, certain now that he woke it, that it brought him near for kinship and pushed him away for protection. But the voice that had accompanied him in this place has stilled.

Soon another begins to call.

It is too soft at first, a vocal ghost passing through the surface of his mind. It takes two weeks before he catches the fullness of the tone. The previous voice seemed to speak as a reminder of who he is. This one seeks. This one expects an answer. This one fits the face in his dreams. Her lips move and he hears everything he needs to survive. They'd been real once and the paradox arrives with a blistering morning headache. Belonging where he doesn't belong. And he can see a child and the love of a father coaxing him into the mouth of a newborn window. A tiny void that would only grow in his absence. It had been made for him and for him it sought all these years. Peter steps out into the sunlight, watching the ever-present blemish hover over the field in restless slumber.

And he remembers her name.

* * *

_**Many thanks for the continued kindness of all my readers. The next installment shall feature a special guest...**_


	9. William 1

_A new point of view for your reading pleasure, presented with special thanks to Starlight._

* * *

**Throwing Bricks into Voids**

**(the ninth discovery)**

In the beginning she'd been a petite lass; sharp, cold and vibrant as a sunning, unreachable woman. So slim and transparent, she used to wave an enticing finger to beckon the ones who studied her. Called them to observe, to learn. Born of sweat and curses, the beautiful vixen defied touch. But such grand sights she would show their eager eyes, of places and ideas, the very fabric of life. Like a mystic, her edges were exotic, the core supple and her mind a thing whose potential begged to be tapped. For a price. If eyes are window to the soul, hers were the gateway to new realities. And the men who molded her had worked stridently to expose her secrets, illuminate her mysteries and gain a world of borrowed knowledge.

A willing temptress holding the upper hand.

What had been meant as a tool to be utilized for their varied purposes became an obsession. Too many advances existed in the mirror world that she displayed and while one sought only a cure, the other hunted for the power too slow in coming within his own circles. To the frantic father, watching was criminal necessity. To the covetous capitalist, it was blessed prosperity. The ability to peer into other lives and discern their daily miracles lacked the tactile approach the other craved and each new discovery brought with it an insatiable itch for more. As a wicked woman bathed in light, her promises were addictive and ultimately destructive to a friendship.

Reason stumbled in her wake.

He who birthed the beauty hid much of her latent capabilities but the other, sensing her greatness, pried her away from the cautious grasp of her creator. The window, restricted to performing the duties of an inert mirror, could be modified. Eventually, the one who'd been satisfied with observation alone found a reason to expand her skill. A life was commended to the earth and soon another would be claimed though theft. And if Walter could set aside his morals to pass through Alice's looking glass into the world of technological wonders, so could William. While some cross oceans to achieve their desires, William Bell clawed along the cord of dimensions.

As with all attainable things, she changed.

It took the better part of a decade and by then it was too late to alter his course. Her charms, rooted in fulfilled potential, dulled over time. The world from which he'd departed was never far and the schematics he'd floated across the cord kept his legacy alive. But in this inventive dimension, he's just another cog in the wheel. A parasite, Walter might condemn, feeding from the host and relaying vital nutrition back to the hive. On this side of the window, his old friend exists in a vice, the wealthy shell covering a mourner who died with the last glance of his child. The loss turned this version vicious, seeking the son who'd been taken by hands that, had he seen them, would have appeared incredibly familiar. A dispassionate Bell could not allow himself to ease the grief of either Walter.

The mirror broke but did not shatter.

Messages passed between dimensions became more difficult over the years. Nina's reports, coming hours after transmission, were often scrambled beyond understanding. News that Walter had been institutionalized, word that his stolen son turned some interesting if suspect profits and impressive details on Massive Dynamic's stock performances appeared after significant delays and a look skyward proclaimed the reason. The window, once a temporary blemish between worlds, had resurrected itself after Bell's crossing. Soon a deep purple mark that inched toward the city skyline, the beast grew in size and temperament. Over the span of years, the populace came to accept with strange muteness the presence of the void and the storms and havoc it wrought.

They believe the resident expert.

William had lacked a niche in this place, too forward moving to require the input of a seemingly backward man. But with the advent of the void came a purpose for William Bell. He transformed himself into the respected scholar of the window. The observatory bearing his name receives government funding and the theories he spins are immediately taken as something of a religious doctrine which entertains no questioning. People seek reassurance and his insights into the nature of the beast comfort. Save the commandeering of a field, the void inflicts negligible damage and brings tourism revenue. It has been noted to suck items into its spiraling hollow and occasionally objects will return from its mouth.

Including a boy now grown.

Though over twenty years have passed, Bell would have recognized Peter Bishop in any dimension. He's using a different name William notices and seems rather confused. Amnesia, according to the observatory's longtime employee, Serrah. She's taken the boy in and fallen quite in love with the lie. An evening is spent telling the tragic story of partial truths and while pictures are studied, Peter confides. He feels a pull toward the void, a sense of control over the monster which he knows is impossible. Yet when he draws near to the dormant vacuum in the sky, the void and everything within himself wakes. He hears the voice of one woman and sees the face of another, whose description Bell knows from a late night visit. William's expression of belief in the wild tale is genuine, but not his offer to assist.

The upper hand stirs within displaced green eyes.


	10. Olivia 4

**Throwing Bricks into Voids**

**(the tenth lie)**

It is generally accepted that an abandoned warehouse is the only suitable location to mastermind crime. There's something about a cinderblock fortress with exposed girders and water-stained drywall that must appeal to the morally impaired. Perhaps criminals find superiority in being stronger than their shelter or, more likely, dilapidation is within the average crook's budget. A hiding place steeped in stereotype, huddled among identical structures running the length of any waterfront in America. In the hours between nightcaps and nightmares the outer shell is scrutinized for entry points, the measure of visible security weighed against the skill of the intruder. From the wharf, the building's crumbling façade gives the appearance of limited challenge. But hideouts are like people.

It's the inside that counts.

The southwest employee entrance, last used by shipyard welders a decade ago, is shielded by a hollow metal door. The four warped corners are rusting into the sturdiness of construction paper and the lock is original, welcoming the picks easily. The inner mechanism falls away and the door swings open, a creaking affair that announces the trespasser's arrival to the mass of cobwebs and derelict machinery. Through gaps in the ceiling the evening rain drips onto the unfinished concrete in tinny staccato taps, mixing with the crunching underfoot. Pellets and metal shavings coat the floor, combating all attempts to move in silence but the intruder is not concerned with the noise.

The corpse won't mind.

The blossom of rot in his flesh indicates that the middle aged man with a graying ponytail and an ill-fitting suit has been waiting for her in morose repose for days, left slumped at a card table by whoever disliked him enough to electrocute him with an amplified car battery. Generic wires run from the battery posts to a rod jammed into the man's neck. Pleasantly unconscious before the burn began, the sticky wound behind his ear suggests. Cooked sulfur pinched the still air. A manila file has been wedged beneath one leg of his plastic chair, perhaps intended as a fix for unsteadiness. But everything about its inoffensive placement tells Olivia that this is why she's here.

Nothing random is innocent.

The body is patted down carefully to avoid disturbing the frail man's unsteady position. A slim recording device is lifted from a jacket pocket while his shoes reveal a dark gray residue caked on the heels. Dragged backward through wet and crumbled asphalt. No wallet is present and the fingertips have been hastily robbed of their identifying marks. The steroids are unexpected, as are the diamonds. A fair quantity of sparkle wrapped in a soiled napkin is found tucked into his breast pocket. Someone took the time to melt away fingerprints and fry tender organs but failed to check obvious places for valuables. The set up is stunningly blatant and Olivia has thirty seconds to wonder why she'd entertained any hope otherwise. The file is heavy in her hand and the phone is vibrating at her hip.

The message says Go.

And the cool air of a damp night competes with shreds of debris for residence on her skin, pieces of brick and mortar propelled along with the federal agent onto the uneven surface of a neglected parking lot. Torn palms push her fallen body into a sitting position, legs folded at indecent angels. She's lost a shoe and a roomful of evidence, of what she'll likely never know; the arrangement allows no questions. The copy paper contents of the file stir in the breeze, moistened in their haphazard place on the ground. Gathering each piece without the gentle care that chain of evidence demands, Olivia shuffles away form the scene, pulling her professional pride behind her and leaving a man twice burned. When the recorder is played an hour later, the faint sound of screaming metal shatters any chance of sleep.

It's the frequency of mourning.

The office is blindingly crisp so early in the day, well-pressed smiles greeting the bruised woman as she follows the familiar corridor to indignity. There is reckoning in her eyes but vengeance cannot be permitted to venture beyond a careful rebuke. No bargaining chips are stacked in her corner, the corporation and its mouthpiece owning full stock in leverage. Olivia's wants are simple and their cost is compounded by the greed of evil. With each step she takes, the file is slapped against her thigh, reassurance that her entrance fee hasn't vanished like so many needful things. The viper in Chanel waits with the satisfied smile of a well-fed beast. The most successful predators are often pleasing to the eye and Olivia maintains a cynical distance as she hands over useless data. It was merely the inscrutability of her badge they needed.

Remains and ruins buy the semi-miraculous.

A face she'd seen just once and recalled only in dreams is pixilated on a small screen. The distorted image takes in her quandary with dispassionate eyes, blurred by a weak connection and too many years traipsing where he does not belong. A promise is transmitted across an impossible cord, an offer of help that sounds incredibly like the serpent speaking of the worth of apples. But interrogations have trained her eyes to catch what others miss. The surprise at her request is not genuine and instinct tells her that his eagerness is a cover. No need to ponder which side he's on. He talks of his old friend's son as though he's too valuable to be misplaced, like diamonds in napkins. Olivia knows that Bell hadn't shown enough interest in the first Peter to attend the boy's funeral. She also knows that nothing good lives in the man's wrinkled smile. But she's not troubled by the necessity of strolling with evil.

As long as the path leads to him.


End file.
